Cold Shoulder Road

by Joan Aiken

  She said to Pye, “Do you know the word for bread? Those letters on the paper make that word. These are their sounds. B – R – E – A – D. Press your lips together, then open them as if you were going to take a bite. Then bring your tongue forward and press it just behind your teeth. Bread. That is what those sounds mean, written down on the paper.”

  Pye said, in thought language, “The big black bird is going to get the bread first.”

  Then she jumped down from her stool and, with tears streaming down her face, rushed to Ruth Twite and grabbed her round the waist, burying her face in Ruth’s lap. In thought language she shouted at Is: “Go away! Go away! I hate you! I don’t want you here! Not at all. This is my home, not yours!”

  Is looked doubtfully at Ruth, who laid a calming hand on Pye’s head.

  “Perhaps you had better leave her with me, just for the time being. But I do not think that you have done her any harm.”

  By dusk three people in the ship Throstle were not even trying to conceal their worry about Arun.

  “It couldn’t take him more than a couple of hours to walk here from Seagate,” Ruth said, half to herself, over and over.

  “Maybe he had to wait till dark to start out, so folks wouldn’t see him,” Penny suggested.

  “Or take a roundabout way in case he was followed,” said Is.

  “Oh, why, why did I ever let him go with those horses?” Ruth demanded. “One of the girls from the farm could have gone. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Arun would never have agreed to that, thought Is. For it would have connected the farm to the horses and the trip to Penny’s barn.

  But there was no sense in arguing.

  Little Pye clung like a limpet to Ruth’s hand. The cat Figgin marched restlessly about, jumped on the table, finally consented to come and push his face into that of Is, but with a growl that said, “Don’t you dare to leave me for so long, not ever again!”

  It’s the first time that Arun and I have been apart for so long since we came south together, Is thought. I do wish I could catch some echo from his mind, just to give me a notion where he is.

  Just as she thought this she did catch the echo – perhaps it had prompted the wish. She knew that he was trudging wearily through the forest, coming from an unexpected direction, from due west.

  Could he have got lost? Or did he have to muddle his trail? Was somebody after him?

  Not wishing to raise premature hopes, Is slipped away from where the others were sitting.

  Pye had already gone off on some errand of her own.

  “It’s nearly your bedtime, Pye,” Ruth called after her.

  Very handy for Pye she can’t speak, Is thought – she need never trouble to answer.

  Going to the quarterdeck to let down the rope-ladder – for, with a huge rush of relief she now knew that Arun was only a bowshot’s length away – Is found Pye, at the top of the ladder, busily engaged in sawing through the strands of the rope with a sharp kitchen knife.

  Is could hardly believe her eyes.

  “Why – you – little – monster! Just you pass over that schliver! Right away!”

  Pye gave her a stony look. But Is was much larger and stronger. The knife was sullenly passed over. Pye would then have made off along the deck, but Is grabbed her stubby wrist and held her fast.

  “Do you want I should tell Ruth that you were fixing to break Arun’s neck? Do you?” she asked Pye in thought language.

  “Let me go! Let me go!”

  “Pye? Where are you? It’s past your bedtime!” came Ruth’s voice. Pye wriggled free and ran off through the tangle of spars, ropes, and branches.

  Is, hard at work retying the rope-ladder with the slashed length of rope safely above the top shackle-bolt, called out reassuringly, “Pye’s along here, Aunt Ruth. And I can hear Arun a-coming!”

  “Oh, thank goodness,” said Ruth in deep relief.

  And Is sent a thought-message along the deck after Pye: “You and I will have some business to settle tomorrow, young ’un!”

  When Arun climbed back on board he looked deathly tired, very much more like a cat than a boy. “What happened to you?” Is flashed to him in thought-speak, and he flashed back, “I’ll tell you when I’ve sat down and had something to eat.”

  In the officers’ mess he flopped down with his head on his arms until Penny put a bowl of soup in front of him. And even then, he was able to eat only half of it . . . Figgin kindly finished it off.

  “What happened?” Is asked again, aloud this time.

  “I took the nags back to the King’s Head,” Arun said. “It was early still. Tom Braeburn was sweeping his chimney before breakfast. He was pleased to get his horses back – he’d been puzzled as he’d looked to have them home the same day and got no word from Twite. I said Will Fobbing had been taken queer and Twite had gone for help so we fetched back the horses. It sounded pretty scaley and he gave me a queer look and said he hoped to get paid for the hire of them soon. I said would he like help with the chimney, because I used to do that with Dad; and he said yes, which was lucky for, not long after, in comes the Leader himself. ‘Don’t tell him I’m here,’ I whispered to Tom, and I rubbed handfuls of soot all over my face and stuck my head up the chimney.

  “Twite was in very bad skin. He’d had to walk miles to find a farm and another pair of horses that he could borrow to bring back the chaise. And Fobbing had wandered off into the woods in a dozy state and not come back for hours. And the two kids had run off and left him in the basket, he said, and he got stuck inside a barn and had to burn it down to get free.”

  “Burn down a barn?” said Is, horrified. But Penny just shrugged.

  “What d’you expect?” she said. “If he’s a wrong ’un, barns is just tiddly-winks to him.”

  “What happened then?” asked Ruth, who had returned from putting Pye to bed.

  “Twite was paying Tom for the hire of the horses – I was still hid behind the bar with my face blacked, out of sight – when Twite chanced to see that Charles the First coin that we gave Tom for our breakfast the other day, and he got very excited and said, ‘Where did it come from?’ Lucky Tom said he wasn’t sure, he found it at the end of the day’s takings. And De la Twite said he’d got one, too, and that must mean somebody had come on Charles the First’s treasure from the Goodwin Sands.”

  “Where did the coins come from?” asked Ruth.

  Is had left it to Arun to tell his mother about the transfer of her pictures to the Admiral’s cave. So far he had not done so.

  “We found some crocks of stuff underground,” he said vaguely. “Near Folkestone.”

  “Did you so? Good heavens! The cache that your father was always hoping to find!”

  “Was he?” said Arun indignantly.

  “Always. Amos Furze had heard this tale of all the money and precious objects which had been lost. To him it seemed that treasure must have been laid up to help the Silent Sect travel to America, and buy land and settle there.”

  Is thought of the three huge earthenware containers filled with heaven only knew what: coins and forks and cups and necklaces, doubtless all made of silver and gold. More than enough, surely, to fix up the Silent Folk in comfort in the New World.

  But Arun’s thoughts were travelling in a different direction.

  “So, all the time that Dad gave out he was hunting for Bee Orchids and Green Man Orchids, he was really just after King Charles’s treasure? And that tale he told of travelling to London seventeen times a-hunting for me – walking back and forth – that was just a load of gully-fluff?”

  “No, it was not,” said Ruth sternly. “He was looking for you, too.”

  Is agreed. “When I saw him – that last time – it was you he was a-seeking, Arun. No question.”

  Ruth sent her a grateful look.

  “But go on with the story,” Penny demanded. “What happened with Twite? When he saw the coin?”

  “Oh, he told Tom a long tale about two thieving c
hildren who were supposed to take him where the Handsel kid was hid, and how they had robbed him in a wood, and locked him in a barn, and poisoned Will Fobbing, and how he was going to tell the constables and have us hunted down and taken up – for he guessed we had summat to do with the Gentry, and I could see Tom didn’t quite know which of us to believe – so I crawled on my stomach through the coal-hole while Tom was drawing a pint of cider for Twite. I was feared to death he’d spot me. But he didn’t. And then, on the beach, who should I see but that Romany woman who was at Cold Harbour. She walked into the inn. I dassn’t loiter, so I ran like a hare to the Swannetts’ house – they were both there, and I asked if I could hide till Twite was out of the way. Micah wasn’t best pleased, but Window allowed me. I told what had happened in the woods and she said we did right. But then, chase me, if Twite himself didn’t come a-knocking, to ask if they knew aught of my whereabouts. Window began writing slowly on a slate, so I slipped out the back way, on to the beach. I thought I was done for . . . But that girl – do you remember?” he said to Is. “That teasing black-haired girl we saw after the old folks dancing—”

  “I remember,” said Is. “Her name’s Jen Braeburn. The landlord’s daughter. She had a red dress.”

  “She was on the beach, a-dragging along a big basket on wheels, piled high with crabs.” Arun shuddered. “She said, ‘What’s up with you, boy, you running off from your teacher?’ I said, no, it was that cove Twite who was after me, so she said, ‘Dive in among the crabs and I’ll wheel you off the shore.’ So I did. I dived in under a whole lot of live crabs—” he shuddered again at the memory “—and Jen wheeled the away from the beach. She was laughing fit to split her stays, and she started to sing as she walked along, at the top of her voice. She sang that song I made up when we saw the old ladies and gents dancing. Remember?” Is nodded. “By and by she said, ‘Well, boy? Didn’t I learn your song good? Can you guess why I was singing it?’ I said ‘No’. She said, “Cos Twite hisself was walking by and he purely hates singing. I knew that’d make him hurry by, and it did.’”

  “So where did Jen take you?”

  “Took me to her grandma’s house. The grandma has a donkey cart and was just going to drive off to Each End with the crabs. So they loaded the crabs into the cart on top of me, and the grandma drove me all the way to Each End – not the way I wanted to go, but it got me out of Seagate. Jen came along part of the way and she told me about LOMAK.”

  “What is LOMAK?”

  “Like the old girl in the woods told us, it means League Of Mums And Kids.”

  “What do they do?”

  “Meet together, I suppose. Talk.”

  “What’s the good of that?”

  “Better than nothing, I reckon.”

  “What was the song?” Ruth wanted to know. “What was the song you sang, Arun, when you saw the old people dancing?”

  “Oh, just an old bit of a song,” said Arun hastily. “I can’t sing it now. I’m all tuckered out, I’m off to bed.”

  Ruth looked mightily disappointed, Is observed, as Arun limped off to his hammock.

  Figgin went after him, attracted by the strong smell of crab.

  “Aunt Ruth,” asked Is, “have you painted any more pictures since you came here?”

  Ruth sighed. “No, I have not,” she said. “Partly for lack of materials. There is no lack of canvas – I could cut squares from all these dangling sails, and stretch them on frames made from spars – but I have no paints. I left them behind.”

  Is was shocked.

  “We could get you paints!” she said. “Easy! Pen and I could go off to Canterbury – or Maidstone – couldn’t we, Pen? Where folk don’t know us. Why not?”

  Ruth said, “I’m afraid that painting pictures is a form of self-indulgence. My most important task is to teach Pye to talk. And to write. When she can put her thoughts into words, she will not have so much choked-up anger inside her . . . And also,” Ruth added practically, “she will be able to give useful information about the Merry Gentry.”

  “But you can do that – can’t you, Aunt Ruth? You’ve seen all their faces and made drawings of ’em; when you worked for the dentist, Fishskin? That was what old Mrs Lillywhite told me. They all have tattoo marks on their tongues, so you know which of ’em were in the gang.”

  Ruth burst out laughing. “Is that what people believe? Oh, good heavens, the nonsensical tales that fly around – especially when crimes are committed, or people are afraid . . . It is quite true that I used to make drawings of Denzil Fishskin’s patients, at night, after I had gone home; but as for tattoo marks on tongues, no such thing! That is pure invention . . . I do remember one man who had a burn mark on his tongue – he told a most unlikely story about a toasting-fork – but as for tattoo marks, fiddlesticks! That is the way false rumours start to circulate.”

  Is was very disappointed.

  “What happened to the man with the burnt tongue?”

  “I believe he died not long after, gored by a bull—”

  “But what about your drawings of the dentist’s patients?” Is asked, wondering if her aunt had heard of the fate of Mr Boles, who boasted that he had seen pictures of the Gentry, and came to his end in Shadoxhurst Wood.

  Ruth laughed again. “Oh, Pye scribbled all over them – when she was in one of her tantrums. Nobody could recognise his own mother from those pictures. No, I fear the Merry Gentry run no risk from me. But if only Pye could learn to speak . . . She has seen them all, many times. It makes me angry that this evil group should keep the country round here in such a grip of terror. Everybody should work against them.”

  “Well,” said Is, “I’m with you there, Aunt Ruth, buckle and thong. And if teaching that little flip-flap to talk is the way to make a start, let’s get right to work.”

  Ruth said, “I could see that, earlier, you were able to meet her mind in a way that I cannot.”

  “Why, you see, Aunt Ruth – Arun and I have learned to talk to each other in thoughts. We learned how when we was up north. It’s like this,” she went on in thought-speech to Ruth. “Can you hear me? When I talk like this?”

  Ruth looked at her blankly.

  “Can you hear what I am saying?” Is repeated. Then, in words, “You didn’t hear?”

  Sadly, Ruth shook her head.

  “Some people can, some can’t,” Is said. “It’s like being able to sing in tune.”

  “Arun’s songs,” said his mother. “How I wish he would start to sing them again. I loved them so much.”

  “You heard them?” Is was astonished. “I thought he never dared sing them at home?”

  “Nor he did, poor boy. He used to slip out and climb the brambly hill at the end of Cold Shoulder Road.” Is nodded. She remembered that hill. “He used to sing them there, very softly, to himself. He didn’t know that I used to slip out, too, and listen, hiding in a hawthorn bush. Oh, his father would have been so angry with us! Oh, why do men make these stupid rules for themselves?”

  Ruth wiped an indignant tear from her eye.

  “I think he’d like to start singing again now, and make up more,” said Is. “It’s as if the songs are all jammed up inside and can’t come out. But he’s getting better. The other night, in Cold Harbour, he was singing away like a throstle.”

  “Well – let us hope that it will happen again.”

  “But, Aunt Ruth, about your flower pictures – I’m afeered you won’t be best pleased when you hear – Mrs Boles your neighbour was right desperate to get ’em away, and old Admiral Fishskin was right anxious to lodge ’em in his cave – so that’s what we done. We shifted the whole load up to the Admiral’s place.”

  “Humph,” said Ruth thoughtfully. “I . . . once, when I was in the woods, looking for one of Hosiah’s orchids, after he died – for he did truly love orchids, he wasn’t only a treasure-hunter – I saw something strange—”

  “What, Aunt Ruth?”

  “No,” said Ruth, “I will not talk about that yet. I
t would be wrong to pass on what is only a suspicion. We should not encourage others to think evil thoughts of people, for suspicion breeds faster than sickness.”

  Not a word more would she say. She asked Is, instead, to tell the story of how the cousins had met in the ruined city of Blastburn, and how they managed to save the coalminers before the mines were flooded.

  Is went off to sleep in a hammock in the third lieutenant’s cabin, thinking how much she liked her aunt Ruth. Wisht I’d had a Ma like her. Too bad Arun can’t act more kindly to her.

  But then, of course, when he was small, she never talked to him.

  If you ask me, thought Is, swinging impatiently about in her hammock, which took some getting used to, those Silent Coves have a lot to answer for.

  Holy Silence my Great-aunt Abigail!

  Next day Is said to Arun, “Listen, boy, we gotta teach that little half-jigger to talk and scribe. And that right fast.”

  He was sitting morosely up in the cross-trees, which were tangled into a complicated mare’s nest among the seven or eight main boughs of the chestnut tree.

  Is scrambled up and sat beside him. The view over the top of the forest was magnificent. Most of the neighbouring trees were oaks, just coming into rose-coloured bud; northwards, the spires of Canterbury could be seen, and westwards the dark furry heights of the North Downs.

  “Why?” Arun demanded. “Why should I put myself out to teach that little goblin anything? Every time she sees me she spits or puts out her tongue.”

  “Maybe if she put out her tongue a hundred times an hour, it would start her talking.”

  “Who wants to hear her talk? She’s a pain even when she keeps quiet.”

  “Arun! You gotta remember she was hung in a basket over the rail track for months on end. And, at night, shut up in a box. You can’t expect her to be a holy angel.”

  “Holy terror, more like . . . Well,” he said reluctantly, “what are we supposed to do?”

  “She catches on to thought-speak pretty well . . .”

  “You two!” called Penny from below. “Can you go to the farm and get some eggs and milk? Ruth’s teaching Pye – or trying to – and I’m making dolls’ slippers. A person usually comes from the farm about now, and they haven’t . . . I hope nothing’s wrong. Go carefully – keep to the bushes – it’s all woods till you get to within a stone’s throw of the hay-barn.”